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PRINCE GEORGE — In today’s curling world, top rinks are frequently a mix of throwers and sweepers from different cities or regions.

The second on Patti Knezevic’s Prince George team, now representing B.C. at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, lives in Squamish. And Jim Cotter’s 2015 B.C. championship squad includes curlers from Vernon and Kelowna.

With a limited pool of competitive curlers in B.C., skips often will look far and wide for talent.

Tyler Tardi’s young B.C. crew at the Canada Winter Games has taken the whole idea to a geographical extreme. Tardi, who at just 16 has twice been Curl B.C.’s top junior male curler, and his father and coach Paul live in Cloverdale. Lead Tim Henderson is from Victoria, second Nicolas Umbach is from Coquitlam and third Sterling Middleton is a Fort St. John resident.

It’s 1,350 kilometres and a one-hour time change from B.C.’s capital to Fort St. John.

“Even though we’re super far apart for B.C., (we’re) truly a B.C. team,” Paul Tardi says. “They’ve done an awesome job. Their chemistry is great for a team that truly doesn’t play together on a regular basis.”

Middleton’s distance from the other three has made for some challenges, particularly with the cost of near-monthly flights to Vancouver for bonspiels or practice sessions over the past year.

His mother Natalie, an enthusiastic cheerleader this week, says she’s “burned a lot of Air Miles.” But she and her son also went knocking on doors in Fort St. John distributing sponsorship packages. They raised more than $7,000 and the names of several Fort St. John businesses adorn the team members’ jackets.

“Because Fort St. John is a bit of a smaller community, they know me,” Middleton, 16, says. “And a lot of the companies we dropped them off at support teams in our local men’s league. So there’s been lots of support.”

The Tardi foursome won big twice on Sunday — 14-4 over Alberta, a traditional powerhouse, and 11-2 over Yukon — then improved to 3-0 Monday with a 7-6 squeaker against New Brunswick.

B.C. rinks hoping to play in the Canada Winter Games were previously restricted to all players coming from a particular zone. When it was opened up for 2015 to the entire province, Paul Tardi began recruiting.

Tyler had previously curled with Umbach’s older brother, so there was a connection there. And he spotted Middleton, who does more than 80 per cent of his curling in northern Alberta, at the 2013 B.C. high school championships.

“We saw Sterling and thought, ‘Ah, he’s a terrific player,’” Paul Tardi says. “So we asked him and he came on.”

“I was really honoured because I know Tyler and his (past) teams, they’ve gone places,” Middleton says. “I jumped right on it. I knew that would be my best chance to be on a really good team.”

At a camp in Kelowna that summer, word got around that the rink needed one more player.

The teenage rink won a men’s bonspiel in Abbotsford last March, then captured the B.C. berth in the Canada Winter Games two weeks later.

While their personalities are a bit different — Tyler is laid back, Middleton more energized — their shared passion for the sport has allowed them to develop a solid skip-third relationship.

“Two peas in a pod there,” Paul Tardi says. “Sterling is so keen. He’ll watch old Brier games and he’s got a library of curling tapes he’ll watch over and over. He’s pretty curling-obsessive, but he’s a super easy personality to get along with, which is great for Tyler because he’s pretty mellow.”

“He curls three nights a week,” she says, “and if you asked him to spare, he’d be there any time you needed him. He was doing the junior program (as a youngster) and was kind of into it, but since watching curling at the Olympics in 2010 he’s been obsessed.”

Tyler Tardi, who played a lot of different sports as a youngster, now is committed to curling. The social aspect of the sport is appealing and he loves the physics involved in getting rocks to curl the way you want.

“You make a couple of cool shots,” he says, “and they can sit in your memory for a lifetime.”

He’s hoping a few of those cool shots this week will lead to a gold medal.

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Ringers rounded up for a shot at Winter Games curling glory

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